Academy Will Likely Pick Nine Films for Best Picture Once Again

Remember when The Dark Knight was shut out of the Best Picture race and the Academy decided to expand their list from five nominees to ten? Yeah, so then the following two years produced some of the best lineups for Best Picture the Academy has ever seen. Diverse, interesting, inclusive choices because they weren’t bound to this number one nonsense so much — they each had to fill out ten choices, which allowed members to be more free with what they might consider a Best Picture contender. But voters didn’t like filling out ten. They had been conditioned to only pick five. After two years of a solid ten, the Academy decided to go back to the way they used to do it — have members choose only five titles. They would then decide the winners the same way they had always done but would loosen the belt a bit to allow for more films to be nominated — somewhere between five and, they say, ten. But it’s almost impossible to reach the full ten. In fact, it’s never happened in any of the years the Academy used the same method to name more than five nominees.

To me, their best methods are when they go for a solid ten (more inclusive) or a solid five (less herding cats). The conclusions I’ve come to watching them change the number of Best Picture nominees has been interesting.

1) I always thought that the strongest films would have to have a corresponding Best Director nomination — not true. Argo disproved that theory.

2) I always assumed that a film with the strongest guild showing that didn’t make the Best Picture cut in the past (like Almost Famous, for instance) was a shoo-in to get in under the current system. Not true, Dragon Tattoo two years ago proved that you could be a very strong contender with the guilds but still not make it under their new method of having voters pick only five and have the math of the vote tabulations determine how many more than five movies will be nominated, depending on the voter support.

3) Emotional response rules. When voters base their selections on their five personal favorites, a system that counts the number one votes first gives precedence to emotional reaction. That is how Extremely Loud and War Horse ended up contenders, although it’s possible those two films might have gotten in with a solid ten, no way with a solid five.

4) The new system where voters pick five movies, and not ten, has all but obliterated diversity (although this year will put that theory to the test once again, organically). The mostly white, mostly male, mostly middle aged voters pick five mostly white, mostly male-centered films. Movies like District 9, The Kids Are All Right, maybe even Winter’s Bone might not have a chance now because how many voters are going to put District 9 in their top five? A few maybe, enough to put it in the pile, but nowhere near as much if voters had ten slots.

5) With more slots for Best Picture the movies suddenly look a lot better. We’ve had, so far, nine Best Picture nominees two years since they changed their rules for the last time. This year looks a lot like last year and the year before: many films to choose from, an embarrassment of riches, even. So expect nine once again. Just maybe don’t expect ten, and here’s Steve Pond to explain why:

A quick refresher course on the system: Voters rank their top five favorites in order of preference. Any movie that’s listed at No. 1 on more than 8.9 percent of the ballots is an automatic nominee.

A complicated wrinkle called “the surplus rule” then kicks in, apportioning partial votes from ballots whose first choices have received significantly more votes than they need.

Finally, first choices with less than 1 percent of the vote have their votes shifted to the second (or third, fourth or fifth) choice on each of those ballots.

At that point, any movie with more than 5 percent of the vote (300 votes, give or take) is a nominee. Any movie with less is not.

Under that system, with its single round of redistribution limiting the chances for films that don’t get 300 first-place votes right away, more good movies don’t lead to more nominations unless the votes are very evenly divided. An overabundance of quality could just as easily push borderline films out as get them in.

In fact, there’s simply no precedent for a full slate of 10 nominees. Sure, the 2009 and 2010 Oscar years each produced that many — but those were years when 10 nominees were automatic, before the variable system was instituted.

To help the Academy decide whether to adopt the system, PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants went back over eight previous years of Oscar voting, 2001-2008, and counted the ballots all over again using the new system. According to PwC and AMPAS, the recount would have resulted in years of five, six, seven, eight and nine nominees—but never a year of 10. And in the last two years, after the system was in place, there were nine nominees both years.

tintin

KT

I’m betting it will be nine again too. I had a feeling about nine last year, and it happened. Definitely, when there are a lot of films to choose from of high quality there will be more nominees. That said, I would like to see a year with a low number, like five, occur in this new system.

12 Years a Slave
Gravity

– What three other films would join them in a five-only year? Captain Phillips? Wolf of Wall Street? American Hustle? The Butler?

– Will any Director nominees be different? Which directors will get in and which ones won’t? I’d kind of like to see someone be nominated without the BP nom (GASP). Very interesting who will be in this category. Oliver Stone said Blue Jasmine was the best film of the year…maybe people are underestimating Woody Allen? Does David O. Russell miss out this time around? What about Marty, the last unknown?

– What passion films, like Amour and Tree of Life and Beasts of the Southern Wild in years past, can make it it this year? Are their equivalents Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, and Her this year?

– What about on-the-fringe, popular movies like The Butler and very likely to be a success August: Osage County (the Weinstein movies, will he get both in)? What about Saving Mr. Banks, which may not score at the box office and may be of a quality being overestimated (does Deadline ever not say a contender is fantastic, what a joke)?

Gage Creed

The Best Picture nominee race became completely boring after they expanded the field… Five spots isn’t much and many worthy films may end up being shut out but, in a way, that’s what made Best Picture interesting and exciting. It really should go back to being that way.

Sammy

Jay

I’m with you, Sammy. Even though the Academy were utter fools for shutting out The Dark Knight, a system that allows only five films means only the elite films, the best of the best, will be chosen. The system since 2009 has pretty much been “let’s give everyone an Oscar nomination”. The nomination and award mean much less when the accolade is given to everyone.

Christophe

Sasha, sorry to contradict you, but the pwc accountants who count the ballots every year have repeatedly explained that the reason they went back to 5 slots was that slots #6 to 10 almost never got counted anyway and did not affect the results, thus they were not needed and an unnecessary hassle for voters. “the number one nonsense” as you call it was still the rule during those 2 yrs you’re mentioning, as it has been for ages, and btw it is this #1 nonsense that allowed Beasts and Amour to get Pic and Dir noms last year, since these two movies had passionate followings whereas Argo and Zd30 had broader but less passionate appeal.

Paddy Mulholland

Oh no it had plenty of passionate support, just a lot of passionate vitriol slung its way too. Ridiculous that even though a voter can’t technically vote against a film, negative campaigns can have such a devastating impact.

KT

Negative campaigns really dilute the prestige of the Oscars. I mean, how can certain winners really believe they were the best and not feel guilty when they played dirty to get to the podium? And while Affleck himself may have done no harm besides speaking with Academy voters and his friends in Washington from Connecticut/Massachusetts/California, it’d be naive to believe that his PR team didn’t play some role in the fall of ZDT, the controversy for which magically ended right after Argo won the Oscar.

—

The Dark Knight is decent and all, but the Academy has done far worse than not nominate this movie for Best Picture.

Christophe

We used to run a lot of casual reader polls here at AD. Best Living Directors, Best Gay Themed Movies of all time, etc. We’d have to set up the polls with dozens and dozens of choices. But we usually asked the readers to only select their five top choices. Then we’d let the results emerge to show the support for each film or director. The outcome always looked fair and reasonable to most of us.

There was no need to do any convoluted reapportioning of ‘weaker’ selections. That reeks of rigging and borderline gerrymandering to me. We’d just let the simple system suffice and let the chips fall where they may.

Because we were never ashamed of our results. We were proud of our collective brainpower.

Unlike the Academy’s top brass who were apparently horrified to see that 10% or more of Academy voters thought the Blind Side and Extremely Loud were two of the 10 best movies of the year. They were ashamed to let the world see that there are Academy members who have such pedestrian taste. Likewise, I have no doubt that some members of the Academy were disgusted that District 9 and The Kids Are All Right got in.

So what do you do to hide the true range of varied taste of 6000 people? You rig the system. You go to your accountants and say, “Hey, we all for more variety — but not if it’s going to mean the public gets to see that some of us have shitty taste and some of us have an avant-garde attitude. So what can you do with these ballots to make sure the results are more homogenized?”

PriceWaterHouseCopper replies: “You mean you’re willing to sacrifice the fringe masterpieces in order to cover up the fact that many of the voters like fringe turds too?”

And the Top Brass says, “You better believe it.”

So PriceWaterhouseCooper shrugs and give the Academy Board exactly what it wants. More movies culled from the middle of the road, and all the surprises — gems and turds alike — pushed off in a ditch.

(It would be a snap to run an experiment here at AD. Let readers choose from 50 movies. One poll allows tyou the make 5 choices. Another poll allows you to select 10. See how the results of the two systems compare).

Forget the slippery tricks of “complicated wrinkle called ‘the surplus rule’ that kicks in, apportioning partial votes” — why do we need a complicated wrinkle? Here’s why: It’s there to smooth out and disguise too much variation.

first choices with less than 1 percent of the vote have their votes shifted to the second (or third, fourth or fifth)”

That’s some bullshit right there. In plain terms: No, you can’t have your #1 choice count because it’s too unique. So we’re going to take your ballot and screw with it. Don’t worry, as soon as we find a movie on your list that already fits in with what we find acceptable, then that’s the movie you’re voting for.

Al Robinson

Vily

So, after tomorrow we should start to hear a bit more, huh! I know that everyone is keeping shush about Wolf but is anyone discussing DiCaprio’s performance? So far the only credible “official” response has come from Aronofsky who saw the movie in a private screening describing at “fearless, brave and brilliant”. Will see… Can’t wait to shut the naysayers up. But you never know. It’s so so competitive this year.

menyc

Tony

First a test for AMPAS, then a test for political elections — hey, wait, I kinda like that.

The Picture/Director correlation is very strong, because most BP nominees are epic in scope, etc. It makes sense that, say, Beresford was snubbed for “Driving Miss Daisy.” It’s a filmed play; it’s strong points are the acting and writing. Sometimes a director gets swept in, even for those types of films, but not always.

Free

rufussondheim

Yes, KT, my favorite nominee is the one that gets the The Tree of Life slot. Last year, two films got that slot (Amour and Beasts.) The thing is, this year that film is probably going to be 12 Years a Slave. Not sure how many extra votes there will be for other art house films.

KT

I love how you totally dumped the entire 2011 Best Actress lineup. It was pretty terrible, and it showed that the voting actors didn’t watch the actresses. They saw Demian Bichir and Gary Oldman, but not Tilda Swinton or Kirsten Dunst or Olivia Colman. I don’t think Gosling was that competitive for Drive, but certainly Fassbender and Michael Shannon. I don’t know, I think this shows an interesting dynamic within the actor’s branch too, besides the fact some performances (and movies) scare them: that they are more likely to go for a more “interesting” choice in the Best Actor category rather than Best Actress. Maybe that explains why Meryl Streep has been a filler nomination quite a few times in her 17 nominations. I think if I ever saw her in person, I’d probably imitate her The Iron Lady voice, “I have done battle, every single day of my life” or “My father always told me…”

KT

This year has been so great there should be 10 nominees. In fact you could easily have 20 great nominees. for best picture including Before Midnight, Mud, Rush, Dallas Buyers Club and Prisoners. I don’t expect these films to make the best picture cut though. An Elite list of five is fine in a weak year. But 2013 has been fantastic.

The mandatory 10 was really the best situation possible. Too bad they didn’t give that format more of a shot. I actually sent Sasha a piece I did about “The Missing 10th Nominee” that was specifically related to this, but it never got run. It was basically a piece about what movie would’ve been the 10th nominee the last two years when there were only 9. Here, I’ll just post it in the comments:

THE MISSING 10TH NOMINEE

Since the Academy changed its rules to “anything from 5 to 10 nominees” 2 years ago, they’ve had the same result. It appears that 9 nominees is the new status quo for the Oscars. But thinking about this got me wondering: If they had kept it at 10, what film would’ve pushed through to make it into the pack? For each of the last 2 years, I’d say there are 4 strong contenders. I looked to nominees in other major categories, as well as films which had success at the guilds, to try and determine the likeliest candidates. Let’s examine:

2012

MOONRISE KINGDOM

With a year removed from the 2012 awards season, it seems clear to me that Moonrise Kingdom was the 10th nominee this past year, it was just not quite strong enough in the eyes of the Academy to realize it. Also, the next most likely candidates were either too “weird”, too “genre-y” or too “safe”. Moonrise Kingdom turned up as an Original Screenplay nominee at the Oscars, a nomination it also received at the WGA. It was a Best Picture nominee at the PGA (which is its strongest case for a Pic nod) and the Globes, and made the AFI list. It was all over the critics’ lists, including big love at the BFCA. It also did gangbusters at the box office in limited release. Perhaps it was viewed as too similar to Wes Anderson’s previous output, but its not like they were ever in the habit of rewarding him in the past. In any case, it seems most likely simply by process of elimination.

THE MASTER

The Oscars saw fit to nominate Joaquin Phoenix in Lead, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Supporting Actor and Amy Adams in Supporting Actress. The only film with more love from the Acting branch this past year was The Silver Linings Playbook. Daniel Day Lewis constantly gave shout outs to Phoenix in his numerous acceptance speeches. It was easily one of the best reviewed films of the year, turning up at virtually every critics circle in some way (except New York, curiously). That same acting trio got nominated at the Globes, but only Hoffman turned up at SAG. It was a WGA nominee for Original Screenplay, although that nod failed to materialize on Oscar night. If it was perhaps slightly more palatable for mainstream audiences, this movie would’ve been a powerhouse on the awards circuit and could’ve even dominated Oscar night. Instead, Paul Thomas Anderson followed his muse down a path that was much more complicated, and delivered an elusive, breathtakingly beautiful film that many didn’t seem to get.

SKYFALL

Many of the pieces seemed perfectly in place for Skyfall to emerge as nominee number 10. It was the 50th anniversary of the James Bond character, and the Bond franchise hadn’t felt any love from the Academy in a long, long time. Adele was poised to pick up the first Oscar win for a Bond song ever (isn’t that insane?). Sam Mendes, once an Academy darling, was helming. The critics adored it. It was sure to be all over the tech categories. Most importantly, it was the first Bond film to reach a billion dollars globally, a feat that only 16 films EVER had accomplished at the time. But at the end of the day, its the same old song. Genre is genre, and those filmmakers will have to settle with the awful consolation prize of making gobs of cash and being adored by the public.

FLIGHT

The only other movie I could imagine breaking in is Flight, although it seems rather unlikely. The fact that it turned up in Lead Actor and Original Screenplay is a good start. Washington got a lot of love, picking up nods at the Globes and the SAG as well. But the film didn’t really make a splash beyond his performance, some strong box office numbers and a 4 star rave from Roger Ebert. Denzel was a lock for a nomination, but that’s about it.

Other longshot possibilities:
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
THE AVENGERS
THE IMPOSSIBLE
BRAVE
THE SESSIONS
ANNA KARENINA

2011

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

The movie I think would have shown up as the 10th nominee in 2011 is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for many reasons. Looking over the list of winners and nominees at the Oscars that year, you immediately see evidence of Academy support. It received nominations for Actress, Editing (which it won), Cinematography, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Rooney Mara was recognized with a nomination for Best Actress – Drama at the Golden Globes. Critics weren’t too crazy about it, but it did make the AFI list. It also turned up as a Best Picture nominee at the Producers Guild, an Adapted Screenplay nominee at the Writers Guild, and amazingly, David Fincher was a Directors Guild nominee, yet the film still failed to secure a place at the top on Oscar night. Why you ask? There are several possible explanations.

1) The Academy really doesn’t want to like David Fincher, even though secretly they really, really do. Perhaps they view him as too cold, too clinical. Perhaps his blase public attitude towards the Oscar circus makes him seem “ungrateful”. But his films are still showing up one way or another on Oscar night, so its clear that the work is registering. When will the Oscars give up the act and admit they have a crush?
2) Rooney Mara didn’t show up in the SAG nominees and neither did the ensemble (could’ve been due to folks not having seen the film yet).
3) The movie failed to connect with the writing branch at the Oscars, despite being a WGA nominee.
4) The movie was a minor disappointment at the box office. No one would call a film that grosses 102 million domestically a flop, but that was against a 90 million dollar production budget. Foreign sales didn’t help matters much, with the film taking in 232 million worldwide. Again, not a flop, but not the worldwide smash many were expecting due to the popularity of those books.
5) Critics didn’t rally behind it like Fincher’s previous work, The Social Network, possibly because they felt burned by that movie’s lack of success at the previous Oscar ceremony. Or maybe they just didn’t like it as much. Either way there was a drastic difference in how those two movies were received critically.

BRIDESMAIDS

The second most likely film to get the 10th nod is Bridesmaids, a comedy mega hit that fared surprisingly well during awards season. Showed up on many critics’ lists, culminating in its appearance on the AFI Top 10 list. At the Oscars it received nominations for Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay. The film was nominated for Best Picture – Musical/Comedy at the Globes, with Kristen Wiig also receiving a nod for Best Actress (curiously, McCarthy was snubbed). It was one of the 10 Producers Guild nominees, no doubt due to its massive box office success. The script also turned up as a nominee at the WGA. But the most compelling evidence of it’s support lies in the fact that it also got a nomination for Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards (Melissa McCarthy also turned up there as well in Supporting). The answer as to why it didn’t make it boils down to one simple thing: Its a comedy. No room for laughs at the Oscars, only seriousness and heaviosity.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the beloved BBC miniseries proved to be almost as beloved upon its release. The film was showered with accolades across the board. At the BAFTAs it was nominated for Best Film, Director, British Film (won), Adapted Screenplay (won), Leading Actor, Score, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design and Sound. That BAFTA love turned in to a surprising amount of love at the Oscars, with the movie securing nominations for Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Score. Perhaps the reason why it failed to materialize as a Best Pic nominee is simply because the film didn’t have strong industry support outside of the BAFTA set. It was ineligible for the WGA and the AFI list, obviously, but it didn’t show up at SAG, PGA, DGA or even the Golden Globes.

A SEPARATION

Won Best Foreign Film, and was nominated for Original Screenplay. One of the best reviewed films of all time. An absolute knockout punch of a film. With Amour being nominated the very next year I wonder if this movie had an outside chance at breaking in. But it seems unlikely due to the ceremony’s knack for ghettoizing genre films, animated films, and foreign language films.

Other longshot possibilities:
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
DRIVE
THE IRON LADY
WARRIOR
THE IDES OF MARCH
RANGO

What movie do you think will inevitably be left out of the list this year?

KT

Part of the problem also is media conception. When stars get snubbed, that makes the news (duh). It’s seen as a huge public outrage when Leo DiCaprio isn’t nominated or Ben Affleck because everyone knows them. But when someone who actually did great work but isn’t a huge celebrity misses out the criticism is not nearly as strong. How vocal were people about Tilda Swinton and Michael Fassbender or Kathryn Bigelow last year? Somewhat noticeable, but nowhere near Affleck’s pity fest all over morning television and the awards season. How vocal was the media about Ryan Gosling in Drive or Blue Valentine and Michael Shannon and Olivia Colman and Ann Dowd? Non-existent. So yeah, media power plays a big role in this.

Sammy

I hate this stupid math shit. lol I want ten nominees at all time and they should have to rank twenty just as punishment for the last couple of years.

Honestly, this year is a weak year to me. But you can always find ten. And I’m going by an objective best, not my favorites. I know the difference. Suppose I had a ballot, even having not seen anything that hasn’t been released wide, I could fill out both a five and ten slot ballot. But they’d be different. Watch.

See how that went. 12 Years a Slave is last both times because I don’t think it needs me but it’s still there, just in case. Having not seen American Hustle, I’m including it because I can’t really see a way that it won’t be one of my favorites of the year and I haven’t known Russell to make a bad picture. LOTR:FOTR is my all-time favorite movie. Enough said. If I had free screenings and a screener sent to my house there’s no way I would vote without having watched all of these. Black Nativity is my favorite of the year so far and not even an underdog but I have to vote for my favorite. You’re a doodie, if you don’t. But beyond that you have to put the quality whether it affected you personally or not. That’s why with only 5 slots my votes change to the more objective choices. Okay I think the Hobbit movies are great but what about everyone else? What will history think? Then after that the order is strategy based on my own crappy understanding of how the ballots are counted.

Filipe

12 Years a Slave
Gravity
American Hustle
Wolf of Wall Street
Nebraska
Saving Mr. Banks
Her (horny old men will like the idea of having phone sex with Scarlett Johansson, or any kind of sex actually)
Captain Phillips
Inside Llewyn Davis
August: Osage County (actors, man)
——— potential but I don’t think will make the cut ——
Blue Jasmine
Mud

Films being predicted often that I don’t see having enough #1’s:
The Butler (c’mon, Harvey and Oprah will have to do some serious blowjobs to get this one over these I mentioned above)
yes, that’s it, I hated The Butler.

Al Robinson

I don’t understand why there isn’t a better chance for Before Midnight getting nominated for BP? It has been loved by pretty much everyone who’s seen it. Metacritic has it at a score of 94, which is only below 12 Years a Slave and Gravity. Is it because it is the 3rd film of a series?

rufussondheim

While Olivia Coleman will not be in the American remake of Broadchurch, Jackie Weaver will be. Since we already have a Coleman performance of that role caught on film for forever, I find this to be an acceptable substitute.